Bass Interview #21 : Xilent

Stoner Music took advantage of the last coming of the child of the future alias Xilent to go back in time by his sides, during the Drop In Bass #29, and ask him a few questions.

1. When did you start to produce Bass Music ?

Professionally, it must have been in 2010, when I released my first Drum and Bass single. It was with very small labels in the beginning, but when I first started to make my own music, I was probably, like, eight years old. And that was with really ancient software, which is dicontinued, it’s a relic. It was called Rebirth RB-338 by Propellerhead. They were a big company back in the day, and they still are now. But, yeah, I took a ten year break, and then I started producing again when I turned 18. So ever since the age of 18, it’s just continued on. But, yeah, I would say 18 was the first year of professionally producing music.

2. How old are you now?

I’m now 28. I don’t look like it, but, yeah, I am 28. *laughs.
So, it’s been a journey because I’ve changed my genre so many times, you know, I started with, like, Neurofunk, Drum and Bass, and then it went through, like, Glitch Hop, Melodic Electro, to Complextro House, and it basically ended up in Melodic Dubstep, which turned into “Metallic Crazy Dubstep”, as it is in 2017, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

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3. So, you’ve been producing for ten years, and I bet you’ve used a lot of different software: What was your favourite when you started out, and what are you using now?

Okay, so at the beginning it was actually my Dad, of all people (even though he doesn’t really produce music), who heard that Cubase was a great DAW, so at the beginning I was using it just because my Dad mentioned it once. So I stuck with Cubase because it seemed like a great work place for me to start with. Then, jumping from Cubase 5 in May 2015, to Bitwig, which is like a sister DAW of Ableton. Part of the German crew (everybody’s German) jumped from Ableton to develop a brand new software. I happened to be lucky enough to be endorsed, sort of, by Bitwig ; getting free copies, and I would be submitting tickets and feedback back to them so that they could fix their software in return, and so far it’s the most modulable and flexible DAW I’ve ever worked with. I definitely recommend it if you want to start producing, you will have endless possibilities in this DAW.It’s like a wig made of bits, haha.

4. Where did the name Xilent come from?

There’s this game series, I’m not sure if you guys know? Silent Hill by Konami. It’s a Japanese survival horror game, for those who don’t know it. It’s, like, a massive franchise, and it’s badly rebooted these days, but back when it came out, at first, when it was still done by the japanese team, that’s when I was the biggest fan of it, and of the music producer for the game, Akira Yamaoka, who turns out to be using so many samples from BT. I didn’t even know about that until, like, January of this year, so I’m still mind-blown that, like, that I’ve been actually, really, influenced by BT rather than Silent Hill itself, so, yeah, I guess BT is awesome. *laughs* But, no, what I mean to say is that Silent Hill, all I basically did was replace the first letter, from an S to an X, and everybody got confused, everybody started calling me ‘Excellent’, and what kind of a douchebag would I have to be to call myself ‘Excellent’! *laughs* That was not my plan, that was not my vision!

The first Silent Hill game

5. Why have you decided to play more Heavy Dubstep as opposed to the Melodic Dubstep you played before, as you said?

There might be a couple of reasons. One of them might be that I probably just ran out of melodies. Not really, of course, that’s a joke. But I’m starting to think, maybe, once you get enough experience live, and you play enough shows, you realise that people don’t really like melodic music in clubs as much as they like heavy-hitting, one-note, heavy bass stuff. So it, unfortunately, influenced me to just, a little bit, simplify the music itself, and maybe instead of adding the melodies as an aspect of something interesting, I just sort of emphasised the ‘metalicness’, the craziness, the ‘glitchiness’ of the bass inside the track rather than the melodies. It was mainly the people’s response to the music which influenced me to change it.

6. Before you produced quite a lot of Electro, and now you’re a lot more focused on Dubstep, would you consider going back to Electro or other genres?

So, at this point, I feel like I might have to stick with Dubstep tempos, and Dubstep variations, especially because I want to establish myself in one genre. It’s very difficult to explain when it comes to the connection between Electro House and Dubstep. The genres just differ, even though they don’t seem to differ that much, but when it comes to the scenes and the crowds, they really do. They’re two completely separate worlds, so, to combine so many genres into one project, which I already did for my album, for instance, is complicated. There were at least seven genres on that album, and I just realised that it just doesn’t really work because, speaking from a booking perspective, or speaking of booking for live shows, people just get confused and especially promoters, they don’t really know if they should book you for a show, specifically because you made two Dubstep tracks in the last year, but you also made Drum and Bass , Glitch Hop and Electro House tracks, so I just really wnted to simplify the idea behind Xilent and, as for the future, I wouldn’t really be keen on coming back to Electro House itself, or any other tempo, but I would rather diversify on the melodies inside Dubstep and Dubstep tempos themselves, you know, I don’t really want to change the BPM anymore, I kind of want to stick to what I’m doing right now.

So, there’s a little bit of a mini story. Before I joined Never Say Die, I was just a big part of a label called AudioPorn Records from the UK, which is the label that basically made Xilent happen. If it wasn’t for Shimon from Ram Trilogy who runs AudioPorn Records, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing right now, and I keep saying this everywhere, and it’s totally true, because he’s like an uncle to me, and he raised Xilent as, like, his nephew or something. But, anyway, ever since I switched into Melodic Dubstep, and this transition into Heavy Dubstep, I’ve decided to maybe move away from a label that was mainly Drum and Bass oriented, and, you know, spread my own wings, and try different labels, and since then I’ve been doing remixes for some of the major labels; some labels that are a little bit Indie. I’ve done, you know, major remixes for, like, Katy Perry, and all that stuff, but that was the ‘Melodic’ side of me, back in 2013/2014, but since then, since my Dubstep has transitioned into this heavier way of doing it, it’s all about spreading my wings in the direction of a more Dubstep-oriented label, which at that point, since I was still living in the UK, was mainly Never Say Die. And since Shimon, who is my manager, as I said earlier, he is a good friend with SKisM, who runs Never Say Die, I thought that might be a great opportunity for me to continue doing this heavier kind of Dubstep. And Disciple are great friends of ours as well, and they used to do stuff for AudioPorn Records back in the day, back in 2011/2012, some of you may know Mediks, which is Dodge & Fuski and Myro, who used to be in a band. It was basically, like, an electronic band back in the day on AudioPorn Records, who are doing Drum and Bass mostly, like very melodic Drum and Bass, but now, since they moved to LA and started Disciple, I decided to sort of see what they’re up to. I released a couple of things for them, I wasn’t really, necessarily approached by Disciple, but it was always an idea in the back of my head, and they’re always going to stay good friends of mine, but I decided Never Say Die, since it’s closer to Europe, and it will give me more opportunities in terms of a career, I decided to stick with them.

8. You’re going to be playing at Let It Roll this year, will it be a Drum and Bass set?

Yeah, only Drum and Bass. I wanted to mention this, because this is *laughs* one of those situations where you have to go back to the roots a little bit, just for this one night, and play some of the old Xilent classics from 2010/2011, and show that I’m still not ashamed of those, even though I kind of am, but… It’s a little bit of a spoiler, but people expected that a Let It Roll set would be mainly filled with Drum and Bass music, but, yeah, that’s what the plan is. And, as it happens, (spoiler alert) AudioPorn is releasing a ‘Ten Years of AudioPorn’ Album, which is a massive LP, and I released a track called « Choose Me I » alongside a track called « Choose Me II« , and they want me to do a « Choose Me III », which is going to be Drum and Bass. So I’m planning to do that alsongside the show at Let It Roll, so that’s the plan and I think it’s going to be sick, and it’s going to be cool to do something a little bit different from Dubstep, Electro House and Glitch Hop, so coming back to Drum and Bass just for that one show is definitely going to be sick.

9. What’s your favourite track, out of all of the tracks you’ve produced, that you still play?

When it comes to my favourite track that I’ve ever made in my whole career, it’s probably « Pixel Journey« , and it’s, like, this Electro/Complextro kind of thing. I made it when I was, probably, in the happiest time of my life. I had just moved to Spain, living in this nice, little penthouse, and my fiance at the time was about to join me, so we were completely free to do whatever we wanted. That was my happiest moment, I think, and I wrote the track over there, but I don’t really play it, because, as I said, I don’t really play Electro House anymore. But, when it comes to a track that I still play, and I’m still really proud of, I would have to say that it is « Boss Wave« , and it’s only because it was a massive breakthrough for me, but I don’t really play the original of the track, though, I play a special VIP, which I never released, so that’s always something. So, yeah, « Boss Wave » and « Pixel Journey », which both seem to be the only chip-tune 8-bit sounding tracks in my entire catalogue, for some reason, but yeah, it’s those two, I would say.

10.What are your main influences?

Oh, crap, okay. So, there are always a lot of influences. When it comes to the earlier Xilent, it’s mostly the Trance stuff I used to listen to as a kid; all the arpeggios and heavy super saws are mainly influenced by Tiësto, DJ Quicksilver, Paul Van Dyk, and stuff like that. The newer stuff is mostly influenced by the stuff I listen to at live shows, you know, the shows I play at with other DJs, my peers at this point, who are on the same level as me, they give me so many ideas, and playing shows with people who are in the same scene just gives you so much influence, I don’t even know how to describe it, but as long as you treat everything as a remix, because everything’s pretty much already been done, calling something an influence, you know, would be emphasising that, whoever’s influencing you is like a massive entity to you, and in my case this would be, I don’t know, BT. I have to name his name again, but, yeah, BT and his music; the complexity of his synths and the ‘choppiness’ of his vocals, yeah, I would say BT is my main influence.

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11. Do you have any special words for your fans in France? What would you like to say to them?

I want to thank everyone for the support from the French family. The last time I played in Paris was Christmas 2014, and I will never forget that night, because it was Christmas; I was supposed to spend it with my family but, instead, I decided to come to Paris, and actually I don’t remember much from that night, which is how I know I enjoyed it. *laughs*
Yeah, I’m happy to be here, two years and three months later, and I really want to thank everyone for the support, because the French crowd has always been sick, and I love you guys. Thank you, once again.

A huge thank you to Xilent for granting us this very interesting interview about the journey of the white glasses Polish. We also thank 193 Records who allowed us to perform this interview.